Maverick (Elite Ops 2)

“Orion, wakey wakey.” Micah lifted the P-90 and waited.

Orion’s eyes jerked open, his gaze caught immediately by the gun aimed on him as the two girls cried out and rolled from the bed in terror.

“They are well trained,” Micah said quietly as he smiled back at Orion. “They know to run now when they see death coming.”

Orion glanced at the gun, then into Micah’s eyes. He sighed wearily. “David Abijah,” he said mirthlessly. “I did you a favor, and this is how you repay me.”

“David Abijah is dead, Orion,” he stated softly. “Don’t you remember? You put a bullet in his head and tossed him into the ocean.”

Orion frowned. “He lived.”

“He died.”

Micah fired.

He watched the hole that bloomed with blood in the center of Orion’s forehead, heard the whack of the bullet exiting and burying itself in the wall.

As Micah stared at the death mask that came over Orion’s face, Black Jack and Wild Card grabbed the girls, wrapped them in robes, and hustled them out of the room.

Micah stood there, and he stared. Orion was dead. What was there left now? His heart was no longer his. His soul searched constantly for something he could no longer touch.

I love you, Micah. Her words stroked over his senses, caressed his empty heart.

He heard that much too often, as though her voice drifted on the breeze around him.

“Maverick.” Heat Seeker tugged at his arm. “We need to roll.”

He nodded slowly, took one last look at the corpse of the man who had destroyed the life of David Abijah, then turned and followed the rest of the team out of the house.

A jeep squealed to a stop at the front door as they threw the door open and raced out. The two girls were being carried by Wild Card and Black Jack. Nik was barking the extraction code through the link to Jordan as they piled into the vehicle.

No one tried to stop their exit. The few soldiers left raced into the house instead.

Micah stared into the night as the jeep sped along the rough path back to the jeep where Jordan waited with the inflatable speedboats to return them to the freighter. Once they were back in international waters, a Navy warship was waiting, a helicopter prepped and ready to fly them to American soil, all without anyone knowing who they were or where they came from.

It was over. Micah had signed his life away for vengeance, and now that vengeance had been exacted, he knew exactly how empty his life had been before Risa.

The jeep braked to a hard stop next to the boat. They piled out and rushed for the black inflatable. Within seconds they were tearing through the water toward the freighter.

Within twenty minutes the freighter was slicing through the waves, bearing them to the warship.

Micah watched the sun come up, saw the light blue perfection of the morning sky, and felt Risa’s touch in his memories.

He had intended to stay as far away from her as possible, but he hadn’t kept that vow to himself. He’d returned several times, stood in the shadows of her grandmother’s property, and watched Risa as she sat alone on the balcony of her bedroom.

Some nights, he swore their eyes met. He wouldn’t have been surprised in the least if she had left the house and come to him. The bond they had created during such a short time felt that deep, that enduring.

But she had continued to sit on her balcony during those few, brief visits, and Micah had forced himself to stay hidden. There were things that had to be done, choices that had to be made. He couldn’t return to her as long as those obstacles still hung over their heads.

“It never goes away,” Noah said as he leaned against the railing and stared out to sea as Micah watched the sky. “You’ll always see her. In the sky, in the night, in a breath or a sigh. She’ll always be there.”

And Noah should know. He had gone six years without his wife. He had lived as the walking dead, eating, breathing, sleeping death. Until the day fate threw them together again.

Noah had taken what was his. He hadn’t demanded or asked. He had declared her his. He could have her and fight the battle he’d signed on to, or he could walk into true death from sheer grief.

The Elite Ops had a ton of money in their agents. They couldn’t afford to lose them to broken hearts.

But could Micah afford to take what he needed so desperately? Would Risa even want the man he was now?